


seen and not seen

by fathomfive



Series: unsettled reflections (inarizaki supernatural au) [2]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon with Magic, Friendship, Gen, Inarizaki, Slice of Life, fox shifters, multiple POVs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:15:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27197020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fathomfive/pseuds/fathomfive
Summary: Years ago, Kita asked his grandmother why some people could make the impossible happen. She had shrugged elaborately and laughed, as if the question was pleasing precisely because it had no answer.The world is wide,she'd said,and the gods are reckless with their gifts.Kita's always known that the world is full of things that defy explanation - and that they're none of his business. But in his second year of high school, the unexplainable gets very close, very fast. Meanwhile, Atsumu has just pulled his biggest trick yet, and he and Osamu are learning how to live with the consequences.
Relationships: Kita Shinsuke & Ojiro Aran & Oomimi Ren, Kita Shinsuke & Suna Rintarou, Miya Atsumu & Miya Osamu
Series: unsettled reflections (inarizaki supernatural au) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1743277
Comments: 30
Kudos: 108





	seen and not seen

**Author's Note:**

> this is a direct sequel to _corner of your eye._ I'd recommend reading that first for a gentler slide into this overstuffed ghibli teen wolf au

It’s 7:19 in the morning, and the light through the locker room window has the clarity of sun finally breaking through clouds. Kita devotes his attention to the tidy angles of his folded towel, his packed bag, his shoes in his shoe locker. It’s going to be a beautiful day. It might get there a little faster if the new setter, Miya, stops picking at his classmate.

“Okay, so, is _that_ one your girlfriend?” Miya says for the fourth time. He’s leaning over Ginjima’s shoulder, trying to read his texts.

“That’s my aunt,” Ginjima says wearily.

“Oh, you text your aunt?” Miya says. “That’s really sweet.” Ginjima heaves a sigh. “Almost every day, too,” Miya goes on. “You guys hearing this? He’s really dutiful, huh.”

"Of course he is," Suna chimes in. It's a week into the new school year, and apparently this is how things are going to go. "You only have to look at him to tell."

"Would it kill you to mind your own business," Ginjima says.

"Talk about unwelcoming," Miya says.

The captain and vice-captain are exchanging fed-up glances. Ginjima snorts, in that way that means he's chosen to be amused because the alternative will get him into trouble. "You're too much," he says.

Miya narrows his eyes, opens his mouth. Suna investigates his locker, all innocence. The captain pinches the bridge of his nose.

“The bell rings in eight minutes,” Kita says.

“Oh—shit,” Ginjima says, while Miya scrambles for the mirror, nearly tripping over his own bag in the process. “Move over, you guys are gonna make me late.”

Suna shoots Kita a narrow, amused look that lasts just an instant. The captain catches his eye with an altogether more rueful expression. Kita tucks his shirt. When he’s done he heads for the door a step behind Ren. He passes Miya at the full-length mirror, head bent over his tie. Two steps past, the feeling of eyes on him becomes briefly overwhelming. He glances back.

It must be a trick of the light, that reflection. Miya’s head is still bent; in Kita’s periphery he’s scowling at the knot of his tie. The Miya in the mirror makes eye contact with Kita, expression neutral, head slightly turned.

Seconds go by. Maybe two, three, but it feels like hundreds. Kita tips his chin in the faintest of nods. The reflection’s eyes skate away.

“Shinsuke?” Ren says, startling Kita so badly he almost blinks. He’s leaning back through the door. “You awake?”

“Be right there,” Kita says. “Sorry.”

Shoes on, bag shouldered, he follows Ren along the walkway to the school, and he thinks about the impossible.

Mirrors reflect what’s in front of them. It’s a fact so obvious it’s not worth remarking on. But Kita pays attention, and by now he’s figured out that the world is made up of things everyone knows are supposed to happen, and—all the other things, which happen anyway.

People who speak with birds. Shadows that stray from their owners. Dreams that have prophesied every Tigers winning score since 1997—well, that seems to be the sole province of the old man at the corner market, but he hasn’t been wrong yet. In childhood, Kita’s grandmother knew a boy who free-dived to the bottom of a lake to search for her lost bracelet. He spent eighteen minutes underwater without coming up for air, and brought her not just the bracelet but a comb and a beautiful white stone. And that’s not even getting started on Kita’s friends, who have secrets of their own.

Years ago, he asked his grandmother why some people could make the impossible happen. She had shrugged elaborately and laughed, as if the question was pleasing precisely because it had no answer. _The world is wide,_ she'd said, _and the gods are reckless with their gifts._

Is that what Miya has, a gift? A lot of people are a little odd, but one in several thousand—maybe you could call them magic. When Miya crosses the threshold of the gym in the afternoons, all eagerness (all hunger), the windows rattle untouched in his wake. He rests heavy on the world, pulling it out of shape like a stone in a net, and his presence reverberates even when he’s out of sight. Loud voice quick hands and the ghost of rapid footsteps. Always approaching or receding. There is more of Miya Atsumu than Miya Atsumu can contain, and it spills over, making a space around him that no one enters. It seems inevitable that one day he’ll reach out for that power, and do something with it that can’t be taken back.

But Kita is the size of himself and no more, and it’s none of his business. He tells himself it’s none of his business. He keeps watching.

Crossing the parking lot after practice one evening, he spots something on the ground: a flash of white-gone-gray amid long shadows. He stoops, and retrieves a permission slip for summer training camp, blank save for the name at the top. Then he straightens and breaks into a trot, weaving between the parked cars. Aran and Ren are waiting at the streetside gate, but they'll wait a little longer.

"Suna," he calls. "Wait up a sec."

Suna packs quickly, leaves at the first opportunity, and always walks home alone. By now he’s just a dim shape on the school side of the lot, heading for the gate at the back of the field. Kita sees his posture shift in startlement. He halts between two parked cars. One of them starts, pouring light across the pavement.

In the glow Suna’s shadow is stark. It falls long and low and fluid on the ground, and it is distinctly not shaped like the rest of him. When he turns his head, his eyes reflect like two bright coins. Kita falters for half a step. Then he closes the distance.

“You dropped this,” he says, holding the slip out between them.

Suna regards him, blankness imperfectly concealing something else. He takes the slip between two fingers and folds it small, smaller, until it disappears into his palm.

“It’s overdue by a couple days,” Kita says. “I see it’s not signed. Are you not coming on the trip?”

Suna’s face shifts. Behind them the car pulls away, and in the moving shadow it’s hard to tell just what the expression is. “I’m working on it,” he says. “My family’s strict about these things.”

“It’s worth it,” Kita says. “I know I don’t have to tell you that. I’m sure Coach Kurosu could settle any concerns they have.”

“Oh,” Suna says slowly, “I don’t know about that. They’re the suspicious type.” Seconds tick by—he’s studying Kita’s face, reading or trying to read something there—abruptly, he turns away toward the field. “It’s not something you need to worry about, Kita-san,” he says over his shoulder. “But thanks anyway.”

“Have a good night, Suna,” Kita says.

“Sure. You too,” Suna says. His profile is already melting into dusk. Kita stands there and watches until he’s gone.

The captain tries to corner Suna about the overdue slip the next day, but Suna is uncornerable; he slips sideways the second your attention shifts. He’s out the door with silent footsteps while his classmates are still packing up. When he’s done with his own wrap-up, Kita makes it halfway across the parking lot before stopping. He doubles back to the edge of the field and peers toward the darkening treeline. Then he sets off toward Suna’s gate. The grass is heavy with dew that soaks his cuffs and the tops of his shoes.

There’s something on the ground, at the border of the field where the grass grows long. He goes to the end of the fence and crosses around to find Suna’s backpack, slumped on its side in the weeds. His water bottle lies a short distance away. Kita registers no surprise. He’s forming a theory, made mostly of unreadable signs.

He checks the road. The day was overcast, and now the bellies of the low clouds are heavy, red, shedding the last of their light into the treeline. The rest is darkness. He stands at the threshold of night and looks for movement in the trees. Nothing gives. But then, his eyes are only human eyes.

“Suna?” he calls.

No answer. He walks out in a semicircle beyond the fence, across the road and into the lengthening grass. He calls again. Birds break from some hidden place a few meters to his right, but nothing else responds. The first few drops of rain hit his face. His skin prickles all over, cold and hot currents driven by the chilly touch of rain. Go into the trees. Don’t go into the trees. The field lighting doesn’t reach out here. His friends are waiting. They’ll wonder where he is and what he’s doing.

He looks at the backpack. Suna isn't fussy about his things, but he isn't careless either. The water bottle drips slowly into the dirt. Kita calls again. When no one answers, he goes back to the fence, sits the bag upright, and tucks the bottle into the side pocket. He bundles his raincoat carefully around it, tucking the sleeves underneath, and digs out his umbrella. He can barely see his hands. Something muted and unanswerable thrums under his skin. As the mist lowers itself down over the field, he retraces his steps toward home.

“You okay?” Aran says the next day. They’re in the school library with Ren, hunting down books for a project. “You keep spacing out.”

“I don’t think he knows how to space out,” Ren says, making hatchmarks in the margins of his notebook. “He’s contemplating.”

“Right, sorry, contemplating,” Aran says. “Too much of that’s bad for you, you know.”

Kita blinks. He thought he was spacing out. “Just thinking,” he says, ignoring Ren’s _aha_ nod. “I’m a little worried about the first-years.”

“You?” Ren says. “They’re half afraid of you already, what do you have to worry about?”

“I think the other half,” Kita says.

“Oh, thank god,” Aran says. “I was afraid it was just me. Don’t you think they’re kind of—uncanny?”

As one, Kita and Ren turn to look at him. “You hear this guy?” Ren says, while Aran’s face says _Here we go again_. “Like you get to call anyone uncanny. We all know what you did to your last phone.”

“That was a one-time thing,” Aran says. “An accident. Y _ou’re_ uncanny.”

“Lucky you, it puts you in good company,” Ren says. “Sorry, Shinsuke. You’re gonna have to settle for just canny.”

“Someone’s gotta do it,” Kita says.

They’re all busy for a while, making notes, dropping pencils, waiting for the library catalog to load on ancient desktop computers. Ren vanishes into the stacks and comes back with three different biographies of Takahama Kyoshi in varying states of dogearedness. Kita makes careful notes on the back of his project sheet.

“Hey, Aran,” he says, careful to sound casual. “You knew Miya back at junior volleyball camp, right? What did you make of him?”

“Real piece of work,” Aran says promptly. Ren snorts but doesn’t raise his head. “Good, like really good, but he was always talking out his ass. Saying his dad was an international spy, or he had a secret twin brother, or how FamilyMart kept a bunch of limited edition popsicles in the back and only he could get ‘em because he knew the password.”

“I remember the popsicle password urban legend,” Ren says. “That one went around at my middle school too. Kids’ll make up all kinds of weird stuff.”

“Did he ever tell you the name?” Kita says.

Aran frowns. “Whose?”

“Of that brother,” Kita says. “The twin.”

“If he ever thought that far ahead I’d be surprised,” Aran says. “He used to bust that one out when he got mad that no one was keeping up with him. My brother this, my brother that, my brother could hit that toss no problem. He dropped it after a while, though.”

“And you’re sure that there was only ever one of him?” Kita says.

There’s a prolonged silence. “Shinsuke,” Aran says finally. “You gotta work on your jokes.”

“I think he’s serious,” Ren says. “Are you serious?”

Kita pauses to weigh his words. “Have you ever met someone who was haunted?” he says. Is that what he means? The imprecision’s itchy.

“There’s a difference between being haunted and having a terrible personality,” Aran says. He turns to Ren for support, but Ren’s eyeing Kita thoughtfully.

“You saw something,” he says. “What did it look like?”

“Just like him,” Kita says. “Same face. But someone else, behind the eyes.”

This time, the silence is longer and a lot less comfortable.

“Like I said, spooky,” Aran mutters.

“Like _I_ said, you’re one to talk,” Ren says. He’s still looking at Kita. Kita lifts a shoulder, noncommittal.

“Yeah, yeah, all right,” Aran says, pushing back from the table. “Do me a favor and let’s be having a normal conversation when I get back with,” he consults his list, “ _A Comparative Selection of Late Meiji_ _Realism_ _._ Ugh.”

“No promises,” Kita says. Aran shakes a finger at him and heads off into the stacks.

“So,” Ren says after a few moments. “It’s Miya you’re worried about?”

“Yeah,” Kita says. “Who are you worried about?”

Ren’s face makes the barely-perceptible transition from _unflappable_ to _impenetrable_. “Just wondering.”

Kita takes a deep breath. “Suna?” he says.

“I don’t know,” Ren says, and he makes it sound very normal. “I guess he’s a little hard to read.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask if you know his family.”

“Didn’t he just move here?” Ren says, twirling his pencil between thumb and forefinger. “It’s not like he talks to anyone anyway. I figure I know him about as well as you do.”

“Sure,” Kita agrees. “I should rephrase that. Does your family know his family?”

Ren stops his pencil mid-spin, point down. “Shinsuke,” he says, “I’d really like to know why you’re asking.”

And that’s the sticking point, isn’t it. There are things that aren’t his to touch. But this team, the people who make it—doesn’t he have a duty?

You pay attention. You show people that they’re seen. It’s important, to be real in the eyes of others, and right choices come from understanding. _No matter if the gods are_ _watching me. I am watching me, to make sure I do things right._

But what if some people are better off unseen?

“What’s with that face,” Ren says.

“Sorry,” Kita says. “Contemplating.” Ren snorts with involuntary laughter, and the tension under Kita’s ribs loosens a little. “Call it due diligence,” he says, which is less an explanation and more an invitation. “I think we’re going to have a weird year.”

“Oh, just a year?” Ren says.

(Here is the first secret Kita ever learned by watching. One day, when he was small, a new family moved in down the street. He saw them carry boxes up the landing, saw their shadows move behind the windows. And he saw a fox cub, rolling in the patch of sunlight at the end of the garden. He stayed very still at his own high window. So he heard when the woman called, and saw when the fox sprang to its feet and became a boy his own age, with a long face and bright, darting eyes. It seemed an entirely natural thing—hadn’t he always been told that the world was this lovely, this strange?

The next day he went to the neighbors’ house and invited the boy to play. He and Ren have been friends for a long time.)

Now Ren puts his elbows back on the table, leaning closer. “I don’t—we’re not directly affiliated,” he says. “I think he’s from one of the cousin families, pretty distant, you know. But if you’re asking is he under the law, I’m pretty sure he is. Otherwise there’d have been trouble as soon as they got to town.”

“Trouble?” Kita says. Ren meets his eyes. In that gaze is something they’ve handled delicately for the entire span of their friendship.

“I’d hate to bore you with the politics,” he says. “It’s—look, it’s nothing new. I guarantee you, everyone knows the rules.”

“That’s not really what I’m worried about,” Kita says. Ren is silent. Kita studies his face. He can push a little harder. “His family doesn’t want him going to training camp over the break,” he says. “I suggested they take any concerns to the school. He didn’t seem enthusiastic.”

“Oh, yeah, I don’t want to know how that conversation would go,” Ren mutters. He puts on what Kita figures is his Coach Voice: “ _‘Rest assured, this team is an excellent environment for young men, and young men who are sometimes foxes, and other weirdos._ _But you_ _didn’t hear this from me, because I don’t believe in any of that stuff._ _’_ Yeah, you think that’d convince them?”

“I think you could,” Kita says.

Ren rubs his top lip with his finger. Kita gives him a minute with it.

“It’s the big thing,” Ren says abruptly. “How to keep a secret. It always is. Kids want to tell someone, or they’re just careless, it’s not their fault—and then, yeah, you grow up and you learn, but your parents still can’t get their heads out of super-secret mode—”

“Your mom’s still on your case about the train thing, huh,” Kita says.

“ _Yes_ ,” Ren says, aggrieved. He drags a hand over his face. There’s another world behind the gesture. Kita tilts his head to make eye contact between Ren’s fingers.

“The other big thing is that the blood looks out for its own,” Ren says finally. “I don’t think he’s too interested in talking to me, but I’ll give it a try. Anyway, I’m screwing myself if I let a hitter like him wash out this early.”

“He might be interested, if he knew you were interested in talking to him,” Kita says. “I think most of the new guys are a little intimidated by you.”

A pause. “What, really?” Ren says. “Is that it?”

“Just a possibility,” Kita says.

That afternoon, Kita finds his raincoat hanging on the handle of his locker. He carefully doesn’t look in Suna’s direction.

In another few weeks the rains arrive in earnest. It's Aran's favorite weather, heavy and prophetic, the air bristling with unseen force. Ever since he and Aran met, the rainy season brings Kita a little thrill of excitement too.

(When the two of them were only just beginning to be friends, he saw something that still comes back to him with perfect clarity. Early morning, under a sky like radio static. Aran was standing hood down in the rain at the bus stop, and when he reached out, lightning fell to his hands like an arrow drawn. He was smiling the kind of big, easy smile you smile when you forget you're not at the center of the world. He turned his hands and sparks climbed his knuckles like something living. Blue light blossomed on his skin. For a second Kita wanted to be him—to know what it was like. That was before Aran stuck his hands in his pockets and fried his phone, though.

Despite this talent, Aran is very dedicated to the idea of himself as a normal person—there’s a joke in there somewhere about staying grounded. Kita does him the courtesy of not making a big deal about it. But he’d like to see the trick again someday, if he could figure out how to ask.)

Both coaches consider the elements just another thing to be conquered, so the team takes their morning runs in everything but a downpour. As they’re making their way through a dense fog one day, Miya charges ahead until he’s gone from sight. He always runs like he’s trying to outpace his shadow, but today it’s just him, feet hitting the ground hard like he’s trying to break free of something. Kita settles in at his usual pace, which will take him from start to finish in a comfortable eighteen minutes. Thick, damp air clings to his skin.

Suna pulls up beside him, throws him a glance, and falls in at the same pace, even though his preferred spot is back with the stragglers. Minutes pass. True rain refuses to fall.

“What do you think about when you run?” Suna says.

“I don’t think of anything,” Kita says. “I just look at the scenery.”

Suna squints at the old print store as they pass by. “Yeah, picturesque,” he says. “I guess you see a lot, though.”

“There’s a lot to see,” Kita says. “I try not to miss any of it.”

“Tell me a secret,” Suna says abruptly. He’s even closer now. “Something I’d never know otherwise.”

“Why?” Kita says mildly. Suna says nothing. “Is this about that time in the parking lot?”

They keep running alongside each other. Suna’s steps don’t falter, but it’s clear from his expression that he doesn’t like the pace.

“I’m not the type to tell other people’s secrets,” Kita says, without slowing down one bit. “Anyway, I didn’t see anything that stood out to me back then.”

“But what if you did?” Suna says, and Kita nearly loses his footing. “What if you did, and you know something new now, and that’s just how it is?”

“Well, then,” Kita says, recovering, “I’d keep it to myself.”

“I know _that_ ,” Suna says, with a rare flash of irritation. “I know that about you at least, Kita-san. I’m asking what would you do?”

Another block passes. Water rushes in the culvert to their left.

“Is there something you need me to do?” Kita says.

Suna studies him. Now, for the first time, there’s something coming open in his expression. “Tell me a secret,” he says. “I want something of yours, since you have mine. It’s only fair.”

Kita thinks about it. He thinks about the way Suna watches the world around him; curious, hungry, never closing the distance.

“Fair enough,” he says. “I live with my grandmother, you know? She’s a little old-fashioned in her beliefs, and I’ve always liked that about her, but I’m afraid one day I’ll do or say something that’ll make her realize I don’t take most of it near as seriously as she does. I’d hate to hurt her feelings like that.”

Their footfalls are the only sound. Kita leads them around a corner, into the lee of an awning and out again. “Since you’ve got something of mine now, be careful with it, okay?” he says.

Suna tosses his head back and gives a bark of laughter. “Hah!” he says, looking somewhere between pleased and frustrated, and about as surprised about it as Kita is. “I’m not even going to be able to tease you about that, am I? You’re really difficult, Kita-san.” In the next moment his levity vanishes. “You know, you shouldn’t make deals so lightly,” he says. “I’ll tell you that for free.”

“Oh, I don’t,” Kita says. “But since you were generous enough to offer, it’s not like I could turn you down.”

Suna pulls a face, equal parts peeved and rueful. “You have this reputation for manners,” he mutters, “I don’t know where it comes from.”

Three minutes after the last of the runners make it inside, the sky cracks open. The gym goes quiet in the middle of stretches while rain batters the roof and darkens the windows. Aran’s the last one to go back to his routine. He drums his fingers on the hardwood floor and smiles.

When classes start, the rain’s still going strong. The air is swollen with pressure. When Kita sits down in homeroom and puts pen to paper, his pen cracks down its length from tip to barrel. In the afternoon he glimpses Miya on the far landing, moving away from him in lockstep with another boy. For a few vertiginous moments they look like afterimages shuttering across a screen. The same build and gait, a glitch, a form repeated. The first boy rounds the corner. Kita blinks hard. When he opens his eyes, the second boy is going around the corner too. This one must be Miya, he looks so familiar.

That afternoon, he walks two steps into the gym and stops. Ren bumps into him, and Aran bumps into Ren, and they both make a little _oof_ of protest. Kita takes another step forward, and stops again. There’s someone standing at the net wearing Miya’s face and a stranger’s expression. He’s spinning a ball idly between his hands.

“Miya,” Aran says, a beat late. “Early for once, huh?”

Miya’s head turns toward them slowly. And it’s definitely Miya, only it’s not Miya at all, and a clean cold thrill slides down Kita’s spine.

He walks up to the second Miya with his hand out. “Kita Shinsuke,” he says. “What’s your name?”

The other boy’s eyebrows go up, but his expression stays the same. He palms the ball and shakes Kita’s hand with a careful grip. “Miya Osamu,” he says. “Hi.”

“I look forward to playing together,” Kita says. He weighs his options. “It’s good to meet you finally.”

Osamu’s fingers twitch. He drops Kita’s hand like he’s been burned. “You too,” he says evenly. “It’s good to be here.”

Osamu resembles Miya—Atsumu—in every particular. But it’s all reversed: hair parted to the other side, the worn spot in his shirt collar just opposite the frayed patch on Atsumu’s. When Atsumu bounds over the threshold and says, with outdoor volume and incredible smugness, “Oh, you’ve already met my brother!” Osamu’s head swivels toward him as if magnetized. Kita has the absurd thought that when he turns to go, he will melt away like fog. Reflections are temporary things.

Instead Osamu walks over to his brother, jabs a knee into his side, and says, “Pipe down, dipshit. You wanna get us yelled at first thing?”

Atsumu lights up with happy rage. “Dipshit yourself, dirt-for-brains,” he says. “You forget what plain enthusiasm looks like? Huh?”

“I will eat my words,” Aran says quietly at Kita’s shoulder. “Not about the popsicle thing, though.”

“Of course,” Kita says. “Everyone knows that’s just an urban legend.”

“You could tell right away, couldn’t you,” Ren says. He doesn’t have to say it quietly, because right then Coach Kurosu comes in and starts chewing the twins out for being too rowdy. “I had this weird feeling when I saw him, but you knew.”

“Their shoes are different,” Kita says—the first thing that comes to mind. It’s true that Osamu’s volleyball shoes are gray-black with purple stripes, to Atsumu’s true black with blue, but it’s also true that he only noticed about ten seconds ago.

“Oh—yeah,” Aran says, sounding relieved. “You’re right. That makes it easier.”

Kita doesn’t say anything, and neither does Ren. It doesn’t make it easy. It makes it worse, somehow. Also, Atsumu started tickling the back of Osamu’s knee with his shoelaces and now Osamu is chasing him in a furious little circle, trying to grab his shirt in both hands. This seems like a more pressing form of entertainment.

“What did I _just_ say,” Coach Kurosu barks. Atsumu freezes. Osamu puts his hands behind his back and adopts a blank, polite expression that bodes extremely ill.

“This is just what we need,” Aran mutters.

Discipline shows up eventually, but there’s a weird air in the gym, curious and wired. Suna spends his time swinging his head sullenly between Kita and Osamu, like he can’t decide who to scrutinize and who to look away from—mildly flattering, since Kita is nowhere near the top of the list of interesting things happening in this gym.

Osamu is a very good player. If there were any way to measure, Kita would bet that he’s exactly as good as his brother, but the two of them keep tripping over each other in their haste to get to the ball, so maybe it’s not worth the stake. At twelve points to eight in the first practice set, the receive goes wide on their side of the net. Atsumu abandons the setter’s spot, nearly colliding with Michinari on his way to the attack line, and Osamu darts under the ball. He sends his brother a sight-perfect toss, and Atsumu spikes it past Ren’s fingertips.

Kita keeps it off the floor. The twins are already moving again, two wings on one trajectory—do they anticipate each other, or is that just they way they move through the world, step and pulse and shadow all in counterpoise? It’s hard on the eyes: double vision reproduced. The free ball flies over.

Atsumu takes the first touch. Osamu’s right there to send it to the paint. In that moment there’s something arresting about the matched smiles on their faces: like they’ve just seen that the world will fit between their teeth, and they plan to swallow it whole. Kita realizes, then, that Atsumu is not growing toward the day when he will do something unthinkable with his power. He’s done it already. Maybe he did it a long time ago.

Then the gear slips, and they go right back to sniping at each other and shanking the occasional overambitious pass. Kita looks at the sideline, and sees both coaches sitting rigid in their chairs.

“Tell me I’m not going nuts,” Aran mutters later, during cleanup.

“Elaborate,” Ren says, scooping volleyballs into the cart.

“You’re not,” Kita says, without taking his attention from the cooler he’s wiping down. “But yeah, elaborate.”

Aran jerks a thumb toward the twins. “That,” he says. “Ask me anytime in the last four years, and I would have sworn up and down that he was full of it. You’re telling me he actually has a twin?”

“The only thing Shinsuke told us is he’s haunted,” Ren says.

“Conjecture,” Kita says. Aran wrinkles his nose.

“Yeah, but you were joking,” he says. “You were _joking_.”

“You have an overdeveloped sense of normalcy,” Kita tells him. Ren snorts. Aran sputters. “But you’re not going nuts unless I am. I think Osamu’s been around for a while. You remember what I told you? That I saw something?”

Ren nods slowly. Aran shakes his head, resigned.

“I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me, back then,” Kita says. He pauses, rag in hand. “Or—no, maybe I didn’t. Maybe I expected him to show up here eventually. It’s like those books of optical illusions, you know? Faces and vases, and those infinite stairs. Stuff that only moves in the corner of your eye.”

“Elaborate,” Aran says. Kita shakes his head.

“I don’t know if I can,” he says. What he means is—what does he mean? The moment when one thing becomes another, something it always was, only it never stops being the first thing either. The way it feels to realize that your eyes betray you, routinely and predictably, a hundred times a day.

Aran gives a long sigh and heads off to empty his dustpan. “Man, don’t get cryptic,” he calls. “It doesn’t work on you.”

Kita dries the cooler, stacks the ice packs. Ren scoops up a few more balls and lobs them into the cart. Suna slopes by, holding his broom about as loosely as you can hold it without dropping. He spots Ren and course-corrects ever so subtly in the other direction.

"Nearly done?" Kita says, to see if he'll sweat.

"Sure," Suna says, unamused. Kita faces Ren. Ren returns an eloquent nonexpression.

"Hey, Suna," Ren says—and, now, that's interesting, watching Suna's expression flicker into alertness like a light coming on. "If you're not sweeping anymore, come and help me out for a second. I could use another set of hands."

Ren is making an effort with his friendly voice. Kita claps his shoulder and nods at Suna. "By the way, nice cut shot in the second set today," he says. "That angle's really something."

"So was the look on Michinari's face," Ren says. "He'll get wise to you eventually, so enjoy it while it lasts."

"Thanks," Suna says after a moment. "Akagi-san's pretty hard to get around."

"I'll do you a favor and not tell him you said that," Ren says. He wheels the cart alongside Suna and gestures with his chin. Satisfied, Kita hoists the cooler onto his hip and makes for the door.

"Kita-san," Suna says suddenly. When Kita turns to him, his expression is whetted keen. "Hey, Kita-san," he says. "Would you call yourself a superstitious person?"

“Not really,” Kita says. “Why d’you ask?”

“No real reason,” Suna says. He looks toward the twins, just as Atsumu tries to dead-leg his brother. Osamu stumbles, grabs the back of of Atsumu’s head, and drags his knuckles through Atsumu’s hair back to front, which upsets the careful positioning of his bangs and makes him holler. “But if you had to say,” Suna goes on, “would you call that a good omen or a bad one?”

“I’m pretty sure people aren’t omens,” Kita says.

“How sure?” Suna presses.

Kita doesn’t have an answer for that. Osamu fits neatly into the space Atsumu has carved out around himself, like that’s the way it was always meant to be. They’re two bodies in orbit around a secret core, and it is just the kind of reckless order that the gods appoint, for no other reason than to see what might happen.

When he looks away Suna and Ren are heading for the supply closet, pushing the cart between them. Ren says something too low to hear. Suna throws a quick, assessing glance in Kita’s direction. Kita thinks for a second about calling out to them. He wants very badly to ask someone, anyone, what they think they see.

While his teammates head out into the evening, he stands at the bike rack and reviews the shopping list his grandmother entrusted to him. He brought his bike for a faster trip home, but he still calls to assure her that he’s on his way. And like always, she assures him that she’s fine—unlike some older people, who forget where they are after dark and consequently become fearful, she always knows what’s what.

“Don’t rush, Shin-chan,” she says while he unlocks his bike, cradling his phone between chin and shoulder. “In fact, pick up something special along with the groceries. Up to you, I’ll pay you back.”

“Of course,” he says. So he bikes to the market and updates old Yoshida on his studies and his grandmother’s health, and in return receives the prophecy that the Tigers are going to flub it against the Giants again tomorrow night.

“I know this for certain,” Yoshida says, “though it shames me to say it. I want to have faith, but how can I? I’m cursed with foreknowing, Shinsuke. Haven’t enjoyed a game since my granddaughter was in diapers.”

“I’ll let my grandmother know,” Kita says. “She won’t want to watch. You’re saving her some trouble, at least.”

He heads for home with vegetables, soft tofu, and salted salmon in his basket. Plus a miniature cheesecake, because, well, he’s getting paid back. The spring dark is layered and lovely, the air cool. He’s used all his energy up in practice, but the exertion feels good.

The gears whir. Gravel pops up from under his tires. His bike light speeds across the ground in front of him, cutting a slice out of the dark. There is a quick, light panting and the sound of footfalls beside him.

He glances left. Just beyond the light, a fox is racing alongside him. Not one he recognizes. It flashes in and out of the dark like a dream, red mouth hanging open in a smile, red tongue against white teeth.

Urgency rolls over him in a headlong wave. It’s like the breakthrough on a long run, or match point in a game; a dream rhythm of perfect alertness. The night air smells sweet. He pedals faster and the fox keeps pace. He stands up on the pedals and works a piece of salmon out of the package, and tosses it into the air. With a leap and a snap of jaws, the fox snatches it and gulps it down, its grinning mouth wide.

They round the corner to the sound of water. Just below them is Kita’s favorite shortcut: the service road that runs along the river. Here there is no sidewalk and no streetlights. The night yawns below them, a dark stretch punctuated only by the glimmer of moon on water. Kita leans into the turn. The fox yips once, high and chilling, and they fly into the open mouth of the darkness together.

At the bottom of the hill, Kita is alone. He taps his brakes and coasts down to a reasonable speed. Still breathing hard, he lets his head drop back. In front of him the road goes on; for a moment he thinks he could ride on forever into the dark, and it would all be this strange, and it would all be this beautiful.

When he catches his breath, he starts back at the usual pace, to the house where his grandmother is waiting.

* * *

“I’m having second thoughts,” Osamu says, right before Atsumu dabs the bleach into his hairline. If that’s true and he’s not just being a last-minute chicken—well, not Atsumu’s problem.

“Too late, we’re rolling,” Atsumu says. “Don’t tell me you’re scared.”

“I was fine until I saw you looming over me with that stuff,” Osamu goes on. The bathroom fan’s whirring, but the bleach smell hangs heavy in the room. “Then I thought, you know, maybe this is a bad choice, putting the whole future of my hair in the hands of an impulse-driven drip with a superiority complex.”

“You want me to do your eyebrows?” Atsumu says, dragging the brush carefully up from Osamu’s roots. “I can do your eyebrows.”

“The hell you will,” Osamu says evenly. “Don’t forget, after you’re done _I_ get the brush.”

“You’re wearing a garbage bag,” Atsumu says. “Don’t play tough.”

“’Tsumu, are you _sure_ you don’t want help,” their mom says, from the other side of the bathroom door. Osamu grins, thin and sneaky.

“It’s fine,” Atsumu hollers back, not for the first time. “I got it. We’re fine.”

“If you’re sure,” she says, also not for the first time.

“We’re good,” Osamu chimes in. “Thanks, Mom.”

They listen to the sound of her footsteps moving away. Atsumu’s got one leg tucked under him on a kitchen chair, chemical miracle in hand. The open window near the ceiling lets in the hum of evening crickets. On the facing wall, the bathroom mirror reflects an empty room.

Now that Atsumu’s reflection is here, perched on the edge of the bathtub with a pissy twist of skepticism on his face, there’s nothing in mirrors for them anymore. Atsumu pretends not to notice when Osamu’s gaze slides toward the glass as if drawn. For his own part, he tries not to look at all.

He works the bleach carefully through the longer top layers of Osamu’s hair. The smell stings his eyes and nose, and he might really actually be murdered in his sleep if he screws this up, but their little mirror problem means there’s really no alternative. And he’s watched a bunch of videos. It’ll be fine. Probably.

Osamu holds his head still with absorbed patience. He’s always been like that: either fierce in motion or still down to his core, no in between. Although— _always_ is a fuzzy concept, when it comes to Osamu. He’s always been real to Atsumu, but it’s only been a few days since Atsumu made him real to everyone else, and convinced them that he always had been.

If that’s what he did. Is that what he did? The memory slides over itself in bright shards, scattered. All he knows for sure is the feeling that drove him, a will rooted deeper than reason and more ravenous. He had wished, and he had wanted, and Osamu had told him, Y _ou’re strong enough now_. Osamu had said it, and that made it true.

“Hey, ‘Samu,” he says, before he can stop himself. Osamu’s eyes flick up to his face. “On the day we broke the mirror,” he says, “did you take something of mine?”

“For the last time, I gave those sweatpants back already,” Osamu grumbles. “And if you say I stretched the waistband out again, I didn’t, so you can give that one a rest.”

“No,” Atsumu says. “Not that.”

Osamu’s forehead wrinkles, which looks gross because he got a smear of petroleum jelly between his eyebrows that Atsumu hasn’t decided to tell him about yet. He squints into Atsumu’s face, way too sharp for comfort. Atsumu virtuously resists the urge to smack him one. “You’re missing something?” Osamu says.

The crickets outside hit a high point in their chorus, a swelling drone under the whir of the ceiling fan.

“I don’t know,” Atsumu says. “Ever since that day, I haven’t had a single dream.”

“Your dreams?” Osamu says. “What would I want with those?”

“I’m telling you, I don’t dream,” Atsumu says, a little desperately. “Not anymore.” He used to dream a lot, probably because of the bedtime snack habit their mom keeps telling him off for. But since he pulled Osamu from the mirror, his nights have been silent.

“Look, if I had your dreams I’d be begging you to take ‘em back,” Osamu says. “You think I want to know what goes on in your head?”

“So you could’ve, then? If you wanted to?”

Osamu squints at him. “That’s not how it works,” he says. “It’s like—dreams are like driving a car, right? Only the car is your brain.”

“Your subconscious,” Atsumu offers.

“Sure,” Osamu says. “And when you’re asleep you’re driving to all kinds of weird places, like Hashita-sensei in a hot tub only the bathing suit’s made out of film tape—”

“Shut up shut _up_ ,” Atsumu says, jabbing him with the brush. “I never should’ve told you about that one.”

“So you’re driving the car,” Osamu continues doggedly. “Well, it’s a self-driving car and it’s driving itself. But you need fuel to go anywhere, right?”

“This metaphor better be going somewhere,” Atsumu says.

“Eat shit,” Osamu says. “So, usually fuel’s not a problem—you especially, your brain is like the Saudi Arabia of dream fuel—”

“My brain is the car, I thought.”

“Eat _shit_ ,” Osamu says. “Too much fuel is a fire hazard, anyway, and you gotta use a little bit every so often just so it doesn’t explode. That’s what dreaming is.”

“You’re set,” Atsumu says, dropping the brush back into the pot. “Switch. I really don’t like how you just said _explode_.”

“Relax,” Osamu says, pulling on his shower cap. “It’s metaphorical, can you get your head around that?”

“How metaphorical?” Atsumu says, as they trade places. “Be specific.” He wrestles the sweaty trash cape over his head. While he’s under there, light coming only dimly through the plastic, Osamu speaks again.

“One hundred percent metaphorical,” he says. “I mean, you’re still here.”

“What?”

“Man, you’re really not following,” Osamu says. “When we broke the mirror, you weren’t driving a car. You pumped out all that fuel and launched a, a fucking rocket.”

Atsumu yanks the bag down around his ears. Osamu draws the brush out in an arc between them: up, up. “You burned it all,” he says. “Now we’re in orbit.”

They’re both quiet. Outside the cricket thrum is still going strong. Warm, humid air spills in through the open window.

“Does it come back?” Atsumu says. That feels like the safest of a lot of unsafe questions.

“How would I know,” Osamu says.

Atsumu wakes sometime in the night. He’s dimly aware of Osamu moving around in the darkness; the door opens slightly onto the glow of the hallway nightlight before closing again. Osamu’s tread on the stairs is quiet.

Atsumu lies there and listens. He can see in his mind’s eye his brother going into the kitchen and filling a glass of water, as clear as if he were there himself. He’s floating, face out of the surface of sleep, and his body feels warm and heavy.

Osamu comes up the stairs again. A door opens in the hall. There’s a shuffle and an intake of breath, and Atsumu’s whole body jerks with the sensation of a fall suddenly arrested. His heart stutters. He opens his eyes, staring upward in the dark.

“Oh,” his mom says. Her voice is fuzzy with sleep. “Osamu? Is that you?”

“Yeah,” Osamu says. “I was thirsty. Sorry if I woke you up.”

“It’s all right,” she says. “It’s just, you gave me a shock, standing there. That’s all.”

Osamu laughs softly. “Wasn’t on purpose,” he says. “Sorry.”

“I remember you used to wake up all the time in the night, and call for me,” she goes on, soft with sleep and reminiscence. “You’d say you wanted a glass of water, but I think you just wanted to be reminded that you weren’t alone in the house.”

Silence. After a little while Osamu says, “That’s ‘Tsumu you’re thinking of, Mom.”

“Is it?” she says. “I’m sure you did the same thing.” Atsumu can imagine the sleepy frown on her face. “I’m barely awake, though. Don’t listen to me.”

“Go back to bed,” Osamu says.

By Osamu’s faint noise of protest, Atsumu knows she’s mussing his hair. “Same to you,” she says. The door shuts.

When Osamu comes back into the room, Atsumu pretends to be asleep. He lies there for a long time, breathing shallowly, his hands as cold as ice. He wonders what his mom remembers. He doesn’t think he can stand to find out. There are no dreams and no voices, and in its own time, the sun comes up.

The next day is a school day, just like the one before it and the one before that. Atsumu and Osamu fight over the bathroom. They eat breakfast together. They walk to school. They have a speed-walking contest on the way to school. By the time they get to school Atsumu has stepped on Osamu’s feet four times and has dirt down the back of his calf where Osamu kicked him. Osamu is always alongside him, or across the table, or just down the hall. With him around there’s no such thing as emptiness. There’s just the balance of it, everywhere they go.

But sometimes it comes down on him, what he did—then his heart feels huge and weighty in his chest, and all the hair on his neck and arms stands up. He wants to shake the nearest person and ask, _What do you see? How do you not see?_

“What did you do to yourselves,” Suna says at morning practice.

“Pretty cool, right?” Atsumu says. He doesn’t mention the itch.

“Actually, it kind of is,” Ginjima says grudgingly.

“It was my idea,” Osamu says. This is true, so unfortunately Atsumu can’t do anything about the smug look on his face.

“Is this, like,” Suna wags a finger between the two of them, “the big boy version of shirts with your names on them? Twin cheat sheet?”

Osamu shrugs. “It’s not our problem if people mix us up,” he says. “I wanted to try something different, is all.”

“You’re just jealous,” Atsumu says, turning his attention to his locker. “It’s okay if you want to copy us, but it won’t look as good. Just saying.”

“Me as a blond,” Suna says, pretending to think about it. “I don’t feel inadequate the way I am, so I’ll pass.”

Atsumu busies himself turning his kneepad outside-out. He watches Suna out of the corner of his eye. Suna is one of those people who’s too smart for anyone’s good, and after six weeks that’s about all Atsumu has managed to learn about him (that, and he’s apparently related to Oomimi somehow). He watches everything. Lately he’s been watching Osamu a lot.

The rest of the day passes just like the ones before it. Morning practice, class, lunch. Evening practice, cleanup. All of it normal, except for the way Atsumu’s whole life changed shape. There’s only one other person who remembers what he remembers. Only one other person knows what he knows.

“Atsumu,” someone says, startling him in the middle of mopping. “You should change out the water. You’re leaving streaks.”

Atsumu’s head jerks up. “Thanks, Kita-san,” he manages. He dunks the mop back in the bucket and heads for the bathroom. For some reason, Kita follows him. He probably wants to share his special technique for avoiding floor streaks. He definitely has one.

“Uh, you need something?” Atsumu says, pausing on the threshold.

Kita hesitates, which Atsumu wasn’t aware he knew how to do. There’s nobody else in the hall. “I guess I do,” he says. “It’s about your brother.” Another pause. The back of Atsumu’s neck goes cold and then very hot. Kita says, “He didn’t come into the world in the usual way, did he?”

“I don’t really know what you’re getting at, but I can tell it’s something weird,” Atsumu says. The words spill out, loud and automatic. “I gotta say, I didn’t expect that kind of thing from you, Kita-san, and it’s—”

“No,” Kita says. “Did you make him? What is he?”

Atsumu’s heart goes _thud, thud_. He can feel himself grinning, too wide, too many teeth.

He thought he’d gotten the measure of Kita Shinsuke. Uptight second-year bencher, just good enough at everything to avoid getting in trouble, just bad enough at everything to avoid getting attention. Weird fixation with polishing the sink fixtures in the club room. Not really worth looking twice at, unless it’s to make sure he’s not watching you.

He’s definitely been watching.

“Osamu’s my brother,” Atsumu blurts. “And I have no idea.”

Kita doesn’t ask which answer goes with which question. “I’ll admit I’m assuming some things here,” he says, picking each word like he’s setting a fuse he’s not ready to light. “But I wanted to tell you to be careful. I figure things in mirrors stay there for a reason.”

“ _Things_ ,” Atsumu says scathingly, because he doesn’t know how to deal with Kita’s diamond-tipped gaze, but he definitely knows how to be scathing. “It’s not—this isn’t a horror movie. It’s fine. It’s settled. And honestly, Kita-san, it’s none of your business.”

One corner of Kita’s mouth lifts in a not-quite-smile: wry, aimed mostly at himself. Atsumu’s spine prickles, which is stupid. He tells himself it’s stupid. His palms are sweating.

“Believe me,” Kita says. “I know. But watch yourself, okay?”

“Is that supposed to be a threat?” Atsumu says. It feels ridiculous even as he’s saying it. Kita’s face scrunches up in a confused sort of way. Again, disconcerting. Atsumu’s learning all kinds of things about him today.

“No,” he says, like it’s funny, like he hasn’t just opened a door Atsumu was half convinced was actually just another part of the wall, and walked on through. “You and Osamu both, you should be careful. I’m no expert, but I do think if you’re going to rearrange things, you ought to check whether they’re stable.”

“Rearrange,” Atsumu repeats. “That’s quaint as hell, Kita-san. Like it’s building blocks or something.”

“It is, though, isn’t it?” Kita says. “For someone like you.”

He goes off down the hall. Atsumu stands there until his heart rate goes back to normal. Once he’s made sure no one’s coming, he wheels the mop bucket into the bathroom and upends it over the sink. He keeps his eyes on the swirl of dirty water. But little by little, his gaze is drawn to the empty mirror in front of him. A dull ache blooms behind his eyes.

With difficulty, he drags his focus from his non-reflection. He runs water cold enough to sting, and splashes his face. It dribbles down his neck into his collar. The vertigo hits then, and the room pitches forward until his head is heavy-light and swimming. Lights strike the mirror in his peripheral vision. Fluorescents reflected, gravity tipping up up up under his feet—he white-knuckles the edge of the sink until the world steadies.

At home, Atsumu stares blankly at his homework while his mind seethes. Osamu, on the other hand, heads right back out the door again with a “Back soon, seeya!” hollered over his shoulder. Atsumu hears him come back, but he doesn’t go downstairs until later. The mess in the kitchen comes as a surprise.

There are bowls in the sink, and salt on the floor, and the lid of the rice cooker sits on the counter in a spreading pool of condensation. Osamu’s in the middle of the kitchen, glaring at his phone.

“You have rice on your shirt,” Atsumu says, leaning in the doorway.

Osamu’s head comes up. He finds the grain of rice stuck to his front and eats it off the tip of his finger, still thinking about something else. “What are you even doing,” Atsumu says.

“What,” Osamu says. “You never seen someone make onigiri before?”

“Are you sure that’s what’s happening here?” Atsumu says.

Osamu grabs a lopsided onigiri off the counter, marches up to him, and shoves it in his face. “Shut up,” he says.

It’s geometrically inexact, and a little of the kombu filling is poking out the side. Halfway through is a spot so chokingly salty that it scours the skin off the roof of Atsumu’s mouth. He eats the whole thing standing there in the middle of the kitchen. Osamu watches him like he’s the last play of the game.

“So?” he says.

“Clearly you need practice,” Atsumu says. He takes another. “Lemme guess, you shaped ‘em with your feet or something?”

“You’re a pig,” Osamu says, visibly inflating with pride. “I don’t know why I bother.”

Atsumu investigates the packaging strewn over the counter. “You made ‘em with tuna mayo too?” he says through a mouthful. “Give me one of those.”

He eats, and watches Osamu scrape the last of the rice out of the pot. “Mom’s gonna be home soon,” he observes. “You’re definitely not gonna be done cleaning by then.”

Osamu freezes in the middle of trying to unstick rice from his fingers. “Shit,” he hisses. “Give me a hand here.”

“If it means I get those, then sure,” Atsumu says, pointing to the last of the tuna onigiri.

Their mom comes home to a mostly clean kitchen, gives them a light dressing-down for ruining their dinner, and lets Osamu hang over her shoulder while she cooks. Atsumu does his homework at the dining table, wanting for once to be in range of their voices. The air smells like steaming rice, and there’s the rhythmic thunk-thunk of Osamu chopping vegetables. He’s pretty much full but he eats a helping of dinner anyway, and feels sleepy and heavy-limbed afterwards.

Later, in the dark, he says to the ceiling, “Hey. You awake?”

An aggressive lack of answer.

“I know you’re awake,” he says. “You’re not snoring.”

“I don’t snore,” Osamu says. “You’re the one who snores.”

“You absolutely snore,” Atsumu says. “I _don’t_.”

Osamu’s covers rustle menacingly. He’s not actually going to get up and exact revenge, though, because he’s lazy. “Listen,” Atsumu says, trying to find words that aren’t ridiculous in the warm dark of their bedroom. “I had this weird conversation with Kita-san today.”

Osamu, tellingly, doesn’t go, _Who?_ In fact, he doesn’t say anything at all.

“He knows something,” Atsumu says. “He asked me what you were.”

Another silence. “Let me guess, you told him something smartass and dumb, like,” Osamu’s voice goes high-pitched, “‘the lame twin, who’s nowhere near as great as me, Atsumu-sama.’”

“Wow, funny.” Atsumu rolls over. He says into his pillow, “He knew already. I don’t know how, but he knew you were—from the mirror.”

“Yeah,” Osamu says.

“What,” Atsumu says, “do you mean, _yeah_.”

“He saw me once,” Osamu says. “Weeks ago. I wasn’t sure then, but I knew later. He looked right at me in the mirror, and saw.”

“What the fuck,” Atsumu says, because it’s shorter than _How is that even possible._ Or: _Who else has seen you._ Or: _No really, how the hell is that possible_ _I didn’t think that was_ _possible._

“I don’t know,” Osamu says. “That guy’s spooky.” His covers rustle again; he’s rolling over too. He has to lie on his right side and then his left side and then his right side again before he can fall asleep. “It’s okay,” he says finally. “What can he do? We fixed it like this, there’s no going back.”

“No,” Atsumu says, and it is the best thing he has ever said no to. No going back. Osamu on his side of the glass, where they both belong, forever.

Osamu spends the rest of the weeknights making onigiri. On the third night it’s a little weird; on the fourth Atsumu tells him to give it a rest and Osamu revokes his formal tasting privileges, which just means he gets hit harder for stealing.

By the sixth night it seems frantic, except nothing Osamu does is frantic. He’s as methodical about it as he was on the first day: starting the rice cooker, racing through his homework, lining up bowls and utensils on the counter. Dark came early, chased in by an evening storm, and rain taps the window glass. Atsumu leans in the kitchen doorway and surveys the fillings he’s setting up, deciding which one to stick his fingers in first.

“Let it cool a sec,” he says, while Osamu lifts the lid on the rice cooker. “You’re gonna burn yourself.”

“It’s fine,” Osamu says, digging the paddle in. A second later he yanks his hand back with a hiss.

“Toldja,” Atsumu says. “You good?” When Osamu goes to the sink to run his hand under cool water, he goes too. It’s a small burn, a red line on the meat of Osamu’s right hand. Osamu turns his hand back and forth under the water, expression sour.

On the outside of his left elbow is a raised white scar. It has a particular curved shape. Atsumu must have seen it before, must have known it was there—he must have. He can’t look away from it. For the first and only time, the sight of his brother fills him with unease.

Osamu flinches as Atsumu pokes him hard in the elbow. “Hey, what—”

“That’s mine,” Atsumu says.

The tap keeps running, splattering into the sink.

“Yeah,” Osamu says. “You tried to climb that tree in the park. You were, what, nine? You fell on your ass and Mom came running.” When Atsumu doesn’t say anything he turns the water off and shows him the puckered line on his right thumb, parallel to the knuckle. “Bread knife,” he says relentlessly. “That old one with the plastic handle. Your hand slipped when you were making a sandwich.”

“I—yeah,” Atsumu says numbly. “I remember. I’m—”

“Don’t apologize,” Osamu interrupts him. “It’s not like you knew.” Something only half-recognizable passes under the surface of his expression. He’s way too calm. Atsumu’s head goes hot and blurry.

“What’s with you?” he demands. “You’re just—okay with it, like it’s nothing?” He grabs Osamu’s forearm, grips instinctively when Osamu tries to yank away. “Don’t mess with me, they’re not even yours—”

Shut up,” Osamu says. He’s still pulling back, fist closed between them. “Stop talking.”

Atsumu shakes him a little. Maybe if Osamu decks him he can stop. “Do you have all of them?”

“Of course I have all of them,” Osamu growls. He wrenches his arm back and Atsumu finally lets him go. The white marks on his arm flush and disappear. “You know I have all of them. You made it that way. That’s how this _works_.”

“Like either of us know shit about how this works,” Atsumu says.

“I didn’t say it was okay,” Osamu says, each word hard and undaunted; he knows exactly what he’s fucking doing. “I said you don’t have to apologize.”

Atsumu grips the counter. With his left hand, he rubs his thumb and forefinger together. He feels the ridge of the knife scar, made soft and subtle by time. Not something you would notice unless you remembered the cut.

“You get why I had to get out, right?” Osamu says.

Out of the mirror. Into the world. Atsumu feels his face do something pink and embarrassing and entirely out of his power to stop. “You said, if I needed you,” he manages.

“Well, yeah, always,” Osamu says. “But not only for that. I can’t be only for that. I’m not anyone, if everything I have comes from you.” His expression turns challenging. “You _know_ that.”

He really means it. All of a sudden Atsumu’s too nonplussed to be mad. “You say that like you’re not already someone,” he says. Osamu opens his mouth. “Which is dumb,” he forges ahead, “you’re dumb. I’m the world’s leading expert in how the someone you are is an aggravating prick, so take it from me.”

“That’s—not what I mean,” Osamu says, blinking. “ _You’re_ dumb.”

“Get your own comeback,” Atsumu says. “I’ll wait. Take as many days as you need.”

Osamu jabs him in the side with stiff fingers. When he ducks Atsumu’s returning swat there’s a nervy edge to his grin, like the next thing he’s going to do is fifty-fifty laugh or scream.

“Oh! _Violence_ ,” Atsumu says, feeling like he might scream himself. “If that’s how you want it, sure—” he stands hard on Osamu’s foot. “You gave up real fast, huh?”

“I’m not,” Osamu says, and yanks his foot back hard enough to make Atsumu lose his balance. Atsumu catches himself against the counter and elbows the salt onto the floor. It spills all over his feet and he grimaces as it trickles between his toes. Osamu starts laughing, startled and mean and full of the shock of relief.

“I’m _not_ ,” he gasps, watching Atsumu shake salt off his shirt. “I’m not giving up.”

Atsumu goes for the vacuum and avoids eye contact. Osamu stands there, hands on the counter, head bent a little. After a minute he wets his hands. He scoops a little of the remaining salt, then a portion of rice. His onigiri are much neater now, and a little smaller. His hands move in a rhythm Atsumu’s never bothered to learn; he makes it look easy. Gradually the line of his shoulders begins to settle. A gust of wind drives rain against the house.

“Why onigiri, anyway?” Atsumu says into the silence. “You couldn’t have got obsessed with doing my homework for me, or something?”

Osamu is quiet for a while. Finally he says, “Sometimes I get afraid that I’m missing something people are supposed to have. Other times I look at you and I think it probably doesn’t matter. Like, people can be overflowing in some ways and totally deficient in others.”

“Whoa, who’s deficient,” Atsumu says.

“I’m not sure how it’s supposed to be,” Osamu continues, while his hands go on steadily working. “But I figured I could make something.”

“You’re not missing anything except higher intelligence, and that’s no big deal anyway,” Atsumu says, leaning into his space to snag an onigiri off the tray. “Plenty of sea animals do just fine without it. And—wait, you have a belly button, right?”

“Yes,” Osamu says, swatting his hand away. “You know I have a belly button. Quit that.”

“So you’re normal, or whatever,” Atsumu says, and swats back reflexively. He feels the ridge of Osamu’s knuckles, the momentary flex of a tendon. “Not that normal means anything anyway. I mean, might as well be a rocket ship, right?”

“What are you even talking about,” Osamu says.

“It’s your metaphor,” Atsumu says. “Get with the program. Why can’t I have another one, huh?”

“Because if you do, they’ll all be gone by the time I’m done,” Osamu says. “Also, a rocket is objectively cooler than a car. I want you to remember that.”

“Man, don’t get ahead of yourself,” Atsumu says.

* * *

Kita walks to school in fresh, cool air, trees and buildings reflected in the puddles underfoot. It rained for hours last night, the roll of thunder startling him out of sleep and then sinking back down with him in dreams. Ren joins him at the end of the street, as usual. What isn’t usual is that Suna is with him.

“Family thing,” Ren says, by way of non-explanation. Suna makes a nominal attempt at a smile. They weren’t talking when Kita met up with them, and they don’t talk as they head toward school. But there’s a companionable ease to the quiet. They follow the river a little ways, and cross the bridge toward the corner where they’ll meet up with Aran. Halfway across, the wind tears Kita’s club jacket from his shoulders. He chases it to the edge of the bridge and watches it spiral down into the brush at the water’s edge.

On the other side of the river, he leaves the road and slide-climbs carefully down the embankment, his shoes skidding on the wet grass. Ren follows him, and Suna follows Ren, before Kita can tell either of them that it’s not necessary. The overgrown bank is enclosed on this side by a chain-link fence, and Kita paces, looking for an opening. The one that presents itself does so mostly as a taunt: a skinny curled-up section of chain link, too small even for a middle schooler to fit through.

Ren makes a face at it. “I would,” he says, “but I’m pretty sure I’d get stuck, and I don’t like my chances of explaining that in homeroom.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Suna says. “Okay. Give me a sec.” He shrugs his backpack to the ground and stands there for a heartbeat, unmoving. His eyes dart in Kita’s direction. He rolls his shoulders, a quick anticipatory shift. “Keep an eye out for me?”

“Of course,” Kita says.

As one, the three of them look up the embankment, down the river. No one’s in sight. Suna takes a deep breath and holds it—Kita sees his chest rise—then the air wobbles and falls inward, a twist of displacement too quick for the naked eye.

Suna drops to all fours, a sandy-colored fox with a broad face and watchful eyes. Not unfamiliar, as a matter of fact. He investigates the opening in the fence, then presses himself to the ground and wriggles through. With a flick of his tail, he darts into the long grass and disappears.

“I really would have,” Ren says, sounding embarrassed. “But even on four legs I’m not that flexible.”

“I’d have to come back here with a bolt cutter,” Kita says. “We’d both be late for class.”

Ren snorts into his hand. A cyclist whirs by on the bridge overhead, and they both stiffen, the smile falling off Ren’s face. The _tk-tk_ of gears fades off into the distance. “You and Suna,” Kita says. “You’re getting somewhere?”

“My mom is trying to adopt everyone in his house,” Ren says, in the tones of someone who was very much waiting to be asked. “They have no idea what’s coming for them. I mention there’s a new family in the area who need connections, and an hour later she’s on the phone, shaking down the cousin network for intel. She made me promise to find out all their birthdays.”

“Your mom’s a nice lady,” Kita says, to see him grimace.

“If you were worried about the whole support system thing, don’t be,” Ren says. “At this rate we’re gonna end up in matching outfits so we don’t get lost in the mall.”

Kita looks meaningfully at Ren’s club jacket, a matching outfit that has kept them from getting lost in more than one unfamiliar sports center. Ren puffs out a sigh.

“Yeah, yeah, all right,” he says. “I mean, I’ve met worse cousins. He did just help me beat the walled city quest in Dual Blade Uprising.”

“Oh, finally,” Kita says. “It was the brick puzzle, right?”

“Turns out the white ones go _third_ ,” Ren says. Kita nods in satisfaction.

“Anyway,” Ren says after a bit, bumping Kita with an elbow, “we remember how it was when we were new in town, and the neighbors made us feel welcome.”

Suna comes trotting out of the long grass with Kita’s jacket held delicately in his mouth. He pauses a few meters from the fence. Kita scans the area one last time.

“It’s fine,” he says. “Clear.”

Suna comes through the fence and drops the jacket at Kita’s feet. Kita turns his head politely. The moment of change is no less peculiar from the corner of his eye—it’s like the lurch of a sneeze, that sudden. One moment Suna is small and brown and on all fours, and then he leaps into the air and the feet that hit the ground are his outdoor sneakers with the red laces. He blows a tuft of hair out of his face and gives Kita a sharp, fleeting smile.

“Thank you,” Kita says. “Not sure what I would’ve done, otherwise.”

“I shouldn’t have,” Suna says. “I sort of want to see you trespass.”

“It’s what you get for wearing it on your shoulders all the time,” Ren says. Suna laughs a little, baring his teeth, and Kita laughs too.

Aran shows up a few blocks earlier than usual, power-walking up the street in their direction. He rocks forward on the balls of his feet and claps Kita’s shoulder, and there’s a flash of hot chemical smell—ozone, there and then gone. Kita thinks of last night’s storm and smiles. When Aran bumps Ren’s fist, Ren flinches and shakes out his hand.

“Hey, watch the static,” he says, to Aran’s sheepish grin. Suna’s nostrils flare. He looks at Ren, who shrugs. He looks at Kita. Kita looks back. Suna opens his mouth, and then, quite wisely, shuts it.

Aran’s in rare form at practice. There’s a light in his eye and his energy seems inexhaustible—when he’s like this he puts fear of heaven into the first-years, which is good for them. His serves hit like cannon fire and he rolls right on, a machine perpetual.

At the end of the day, the captain assigns a small contingent to give the club room its twice-weekly cleaning, while everyone else takes care of the gym. Kita’s on it because Kita’s always on it, because Kita is the only one who scrubs out the pink ring around the sink drains. He’s at peace with this. The twins haul the cleaning supplies over, Osamu in suspiciously good humor and Atsumu exactly the opposite. He had an off day today, and none of his classmates are about to let him forget it.

“Will you quit pacing,” Ginjima says.

“Make me,” Atsumu says.

“I don’t think laps are going to do you any good,” Suna says. “More passing drills, though—”

“ _Ha_ ,” Osamu says.

“One more word, I dare you,” Atsumu announces to the room at large.

“Guys,” Aran says warningly. Atsumu’s face pinches up in dismay. His awe of Aran and his readiness to get into it with his classmates are about equal forces. Osamu snorts into his hand. Atsumu scowls, and marches across the club room toward his brother.

At least, he starts to. His foot catches on the strap of someone’s bag, and he loses his balance. It’s a quick, ordinary fall, backwards toward the full-length dressing mirror. His shoulders hit the glass—by then they’re all bracing for the crash.

The glass ripples.

Atsumu’s momentum doesn’t slow one bit. He slips into the mirror like a diver in deep water. Kita lunges over the bench and grabs his wrist right before he disappears.

He loses his balance, stumbles forward three steps, and slams his other hand into the wall. “ _Help me,_ ” he barks. It’s the first time he’s ever raised his voice in this room, and it comes out harsh. “It’s pulling him—” He tightens his grip. He must be hurting Atsumu but there’s no help for it. An inexorable force is dragging Atsumu into the mirror.

In the glass he’s clear as a reflection. His mouth is moving, chest heaving, but he makes no sound at all. His other hand scrabbles at the glass until his fingertips are white.

Osamu’s hands close around Kita’s forearm like a vise. Suna and Gin are in his periphery, hands on his shirt, his shoulders, but the four of them stay locked in stalemate until Aran takes hold. He wraps both hands around Kita’s upper arm and pulls with a strength that sends Kita stumbling back. Blue sparks burst around his fingers. Tiny burn marks sizzle into Kita’s sleeve, and Atsumu’s arm comes out of the mirror to the elbow.

Osamu and Aran change their grips, alternating hands along Atsumu’s forearm. Behind Atsumu the room’s reflection is blurry, warped, shapes and colors bleeding under the strain of some huge gravity. His hand opens toward them, fingers shaking.

“On count,” Aran says. “Shinsuke—”

“One,” Kita says, “two, three.”

He throws his weight back and the others follow. Glass bursts in a razor spray along the lockers and the tiled floor. Atsumu gasps, huge and arrhythmic, and they all crash backward against the notice board and the laundry hamper. Osamu grabs Atsumu by the shoulders and shakes him with a wordless noise of triumph.

“Take one of us back? Not fucking likely,” he says, and sits down hard in a pile of dirty scrimmage jerseys. Atsumu drops next to him.

“Oh my god,” Ginjima says. “I knew you guys were weird but I thought it was normal weird. Like, your _personalities_.”

“Shit, what a mess,” Aran says.

“Atsumu,” Kita says, looking at the way he’s cradling his arm, “you’re hurt?”

Atsumu shakes his head. “Take more’n that,” he says, a beat too late. His eyes are glassy, and he’s breathing light and fast. No one says anything.

A protein bar hits Atsumu in the chest. He watches it drop into his lap. Then he picks it up, rips the wrapper half off, and takes three huge rapid bites. Only then does he look up at Suna, forehead wrinkling.

Suna gives him a spooked, humorless grin. “Settles the nerves,” he says. He’s breathing a little too quickly himself.

“Uh,” Osamu says, “you got any more of those?” Suna shakes his head.

Like he’s standing behind himself, Kita sees that he is maneuvering to pull his shoes from his locker. He is gathering the jerseys back into the hamper, collecting the pins that popped loose from the corkboard. He considers his own breathing. It feels okay. He can handle this.

“Hey. Your hand,” Aran says. He’s holding out the first aid kit. When Kita reaches for it, he finally sees the long, shallow cut across the side of his right hand. It’s bleeding sluggishly. It only starts hurting once he really looks at it. He takes a seat on the bench, and starts searching for the antibacterial gel.

Ginjima’s been staring at the twins. When he forces his gaze away, it lands on Aran and sticks there for another few moments. Then he gives his head a shake and moves carefully to the wrecked mirror. He takes the frame off the wall and stares through it for a moment before laying it down on the floor.

That’s when the door opens. “Oh, no, no,” the captain says. “What happened in here? What’s going on?”

Atsumu crushes his wrapper in his fist, shoulders stiff. Osamu’s face goes perfectly, terrifyingly blank. Kita and Aran share a look.

“My fault,” Kita says, taping his bandage in place. “I knocked my bag into the mirror. I’m very sorry.”

“It was like slow motion,” Aran says. “You should have seen it. The weight of this guy’s textbooks, huh?”

“A smaller mirror would be much more practical in this spot,” Kita says. “I’ll pay the full cost of the original, of course.”

“Overachiever problems,” Ginjima adds, strained. “Better not come in here until we clean it all up.”

Aran moves gingerly past Kita, hand out for the broom the vice-captain’s holding. “Shinsuke,” he says meaningfully, “I’ll start on the glass. Since, you know, I made you lose your balance and all.” He jerks his chin toward the twins. Subtlety is not his strong suit.

“If you’re sure,” Kita says, retrieving his wallet and jacket. “I’d better go down to the convenience store for some more trash bags. Atsumu, Osamu, you two come with me.”

Atsumu’s head turns haltingly. He gets to his feet the same way, like he’s momentarily forgotten what his joints are for. He and Osamu stand pressed together at the shoulder. “Again, I really am sorry,” Kita tells the captain while they fumble for their shoes. “We won’t be long at all.”

The captain studies him. “Do what you need to,” he says finally. Ren watches Kita zip his jacket over the scattering of burn marks.

Kita leads the twins, biddable for once, down the block to the FamilyMart. “My treat,” he says, as he follows them inside.

“You might regret that,” Atsumu says, but it sounds forced. Kita laughs, which makes them stare at him in consternation.

“It’s fine,” he says. “You’re hungry, right? I know I am.”

He is. He’s really, really hungry all of a sudden. He picks soft white sandwiches, and spicy crackers, and chicken on a skewer. They heap their purchases on the counter. The cashier, used to a steady procession of hunger-addled high school athletes, doesn’t raise an eyebrow.

“Kita-san,” Atsumu says at his elbow. “I—thanks. Thank you.”

“And sorry about your hand,” Osamu adds.

“Did Aran-kun set you on _fire_?” Atsumu says.

“Of course not,” Kita says.

“Do you have a T-Point card,” the cashier says.

“ _Kita-san_ ,” Atsumu says. “Does this mean you’re not gonna tell—”

“No card, thank you. It’s all right,” Kita tells Atsumu. “I can keep a secret.”

“Oh, would you like the blue, the pink, or the green wrapper?” the cashier says. “They’re all limited edition secret flavors, summer only.”

“I’m sorry?” Kita says.

“‘ _I can keep a secret_ ,’” the cashier says, bored. “When you use the key phrase, you can get a free Surprise Bar with a purchase of more than 1200 yen. Today’s the last day.”

“In that case, I’ll have the blue, please,” Kita says. He resumes counting out his money. “Aran’s never gonna believe me.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Atsumu and Osamu looking at him like he’s just performed a magic trick. He pays, and the Surprise Bar is presented. It’s one of those sharing popsicles, with a wrapper that proclaims Eight Color-Coded Surprise Flavors: Try Them All!

Osamu rips through the top of a bag of shrimp crackers. “We need you to promise,” he says, his stare fierce. “It’s important.” That intensity is all him, tectonic where his brother is incendiary. It comes to Kita again that he’s probably not human. It hardly seems to matter.

“Yeah,” Kita says, unwrapping the Surprise Bar. He splits it carefully down the indented middle, and offers the twins each a half. “I know. I promise.”

They leave the store without speaking, the twins crunching ice in matched rhythm. They’re both popsicle-biters, because of course they are. Kita is first to the door. The adrenaline in his blood has settled, mostly. What’s left is a treacherous lightness.

Each step feels lifted, precarious. Like gravity has become, for the time being, nothing but a particularly convincing suggestion. In the sliding glass of the automatic door, he sees his own face hanging before him for just a second before it glides away. It’s what he expected to see: his own eyes and mouth, the same reflection as always.

Except for when he blinks. Then, he supposes, it could be doing anything.

**Author's Note:**

> this is a weird soup with a lot of stuff floating in it. a non-exhaustive list includes: doppelgangers and bilocation lore (especially the Scandinavian concept of a "spirit predecessor"), Pom Poko, the film Bilocation, kazetsuyo (the bike scene), and Aimee Bender and Helen Oyeyemi's short stories.
> 
> I had a lot of hassle getting this fic into a shape I wanted to share, but here it is - I'd love to know what you think!


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